Bottled Spirits
by Carlier36
Summary: After Miles leaves, Bass and Rachel have only each other and, in the late night hours when there is no one else to notice, they forge a hesitant almost-friendship. It doesn't last; how could it?


Disclaimer: I do not own Revolution nor am I associated with any of the cast or crew.

A/N: I spent an inordinate amount of time researching the floorplans of Independence Hall and comparing them to screencaps from the show only to decide, for the sake of my sanity, that they simply don't match up. The placement of the windows and doors are slightly off in every room we see and, for that matter, I'm convinced we never saw the downstairs, where the Continental Congress met. That said, Bass' office and Rachel's room seem to roughly correspond to the Governor's Council Chamber and the Committee Room, respectively.

Prompts:

Crystal (prompt table)

Rachel, Bass – they pick up each other's habits (mustbethursday3)

**Bottled Spirits**

The office door shut behind him with click in the still of night (early morning, he corrected in the back of his head), and he turned the key in the lock. Tucking it in his pocket, state secrets safe for another evening, Bass ran a hand over his face. He loosened the button at his throat as he stepped around the Liberty Bell, her surface as glossy and familiar as ever. The grandfather clock on his way out of the office had read nearly three o'clock in the morning, though in the weeks since Miles- in the last few weeks, retiring nearly at dawn had been a regular occurrence.

There was a creak down the hall and he froze, hand flying to the dagger at his belt, before a maid emerged from the stairwell balancing a tea tray. She shrieked at the sight of him, nearly losing the tray, porcelain and silver jangling. "General, I'm so sorry, I-" She looked practically white, hands shaking, and he wondered for a moment when he had become the terrifying beast she seemed to see.

"Where is that going?" he snapped and it sounded coarse and demanding even in his head but, then, it was three in the morning.

"T-to Mrs. Matheson, sir."

"In the middle of the night? What does she think she's doing, waiting up for the British?"

She stared at him, eyes wide and a little confused, and he shrugged it off. "Give it to me." The girl stood there dumb for a moment longer so he reached over to snatch the tray from her hands. "I'll take it myself. You're dismissed."

Bass turned on his heel, not bothering to notice how long it took her to gather her wits again before he marched through the double doors into Rachel's new room, just across the hall from his office so she was always close at hand. That it was Miles' former quarters, and she knew it, was just salt in her proverbial wounds. Stepping into the room, he kicked the door shut with the toe of his boot, as much announcing his presence as anything.

Rachel lifted her head from her desk, scrambling up out of the chair at the sight of him, her hands clenched tight on the wooden back. "Bass." Her features relaxed as she took in the tray in his hands and his relaxed, unbuttoned collar. "What, you're my new maidservant?"

"Funny." Setting the tray on the table in the center of the room, he gestured to the clock. "Why exactly are you ordering tea at three o'clock in the morning?"

Folding her arms over a set of new satin pajamas, Rachel stared at him with those blank, unnerving blue eyes.

"It's not drugged or laced with truth serum. Although that's not a bad idea, if only I could get my hands on some sodium pentothal." Bass poured a cup, steam rising off the hot liquid as he held it out to her. "Come on. Why are you still up?"

She hesitated a moment longer before taking the cup from him, long fingers curling around it to warm herself before she reached out for two cubes of sugar. "Not tired."

"Don't lie to me, Rachel."

He watched her swallow visibly, staring deep into the amber liquid as she crushed her sugar cubes with the back of a spoon. "I have nightmares."

Bass contemplated the teapot for a few seconds before lifting the crystal decanter off the table and filling his cup with whiskey instead. "Don't we all."

"Your nightmares are self-inflicted. Mine…"

"You left your family. Your nightmares are self-inflicted too." He sank onto the corner of the footboard, one ankle crossed in front of the other.

"It's too late at night to be that cruel, Bass." Rachel murmured without looking truly offended as she crossed the room, satin whispering against her skin. Sitting on the bed, she tucked her legs beneath her, sipping at her tea.

Without thinking, he sipped at his own drink, hand raising in time with hers. He glanced over, her eyes as stark and cold in the dimly lit bedroom as his probably were. "Not cruel. Honest. Maybe all nightmares are self-inflicted. We're just conditioned to believe the monsters under the bed aren't real."

"Why did you bring me my tea?"

"I wanted to know what you were doing up in the middle of the night." Bass cradled the cup, too fragile in his large hands as he squinted into the near-dark. "Guess you were just doing the same thing I was. You'll sleep better if you trade the tea for whiskey."

"Clearly it's working so well for you."

He reached out a hand, fingertips brushing her cheek and marveled that she didn't even flinch away. Had Miles really been so gentle with her all these years or was she so stupid and brave that he just didn't bother her? It was almost refreshing, to not be looked at with fear, like the maid had looked at him in the hallway. "You should watch that barbed wit of yours. It could get you in trouble one day."

"Not wit. Just honest." Rachel's lips lifted in a sad half-smile as she clinked the edge of her cup against his. "Night, Bass." She took another sip before setting her cup aside on the nightstand and tugging the covers up over her body. Bass watched as she leaned over, graceful hand curled around the back of the candle flame.

She snuffed it out, curling on her side, and he sat there on the edge of the bed in the dark, teacup in hand and the grandfather clock ticking by the window. Rachel's breathing turned soft behind him as if she were really asleep. Finally, he stood, tossing back the last of the alcohol. Bending over the bed, he smoothed blond hair away from her face, always curious about the feel of her. Skin and hair and curves that had always been _Miles', _even when she was Ben's.

"Night, Rachel." He left her alone to her nightmares, closing the door behind him with an almost silent click.

Such late night visits never became habit, per se, but as the immediate trauma of Miles' betrayal began to fade, Bass found himself at her table on more occasions than he liked to admit. She always sipped at her tea, he at his whiskey, and-

it was nearly comfortable. For a few minutes, maybe an hour, while the city lay black and sleeping, he could pretend they were still friends, that Miles would be home any minute and that his life was nothing more than a nightmare.

"_Stop_ that," Rachel scolded him one night as he sat with his feet up on the bed, snatching a Hemingway out of his hands before he could dog-ear the page. "You're ruining all my books."

"You get a new stack of twenty every week. This Republic spends more money on your reading habits than on ammunition."

"That doesn't give you license to destroy them," she sniffed, neatly rearranging a stack of her most recent acquisitions on the desk. "That philosophy could apply to a lot of things, you know."

"Don't press my patience with your politics, Rachel." She always seemed to know when he went from whiskey-fueled jovial to dead serious and her shoulders tensed slightly, hand tightening on a faded copy of _A Wrinkle in Time_, a bullet hole through the cover.

He watched her gather herself before moving to refresh her tea. Bass reached over, dropping two sugar cubes in her cup; his fingers brushed against hers, the action as familiar as the way she crushed the cubes with the back of her spoon, decisively and with more force than necessary.

"You always dog-ear the Lost Generation. I'm no lit theorist but it seems," she paused, squinting at him, candlelight flickering over her face, "ironic."

"They got us through the first five years and I thought those were the hardest days of my life. They'll get us through the next five too."

"Something tells me you miss the point of the _Lost _Generation," Rachel repeated, sucking sugar and tea off her spoon. "Let me go to the library myself this week. I'll pick out something to really muck up your world view."

"Stop asking." Bass ground his teeth, sick of her endless requests to leave the Hall, without ever conceding a sliver of information about Ben's projects. She tapped her nails against the edge of her cup though, visibly steeling herself, and he felt a stab of sorrow that such a spirit, a spirit they had failed for four years to break, should be kept bottled, her many-windowed room like the crystal decanters he was so fond of, a genie in a crystal bottle. "It doesn't have to be like this. You could move about freely, if you gave me a reason to trust you."

Rachel scoffed, sipping at her now syrup-sweet tea. "I don't know anything. I came here voluntarily."

"That's an overstatement. Miles had to-" He stopped himself, lifting a hand to chew on his cuticle. "I'm leaving tomorrow for some border checks. I'll be gone a few weeks, maybe a month. We need to save face, after everything. Show the Republic that nothing's changed."

"Always the politician."

He thought he detected the slightest touch of sarcasm and, leaning forward, drew his fingers over her wrist. "You think I'm such a monster, Rachel, but my only concern is keeping the people under my care safe."

Her lips twisted into a tight line and she almost seemed to freeze beneath his touch, breath held in caution, never as indifferent to his closeness as he'd once thought. "Don't bother with all of that. Please. I'm not one of your sycophants."

It was an exhausting six weeks before he saw Philadelphia again. . The northern provinces in particular had been a draining wake-up to the sheer number of Rebel footholds scattered throughout the Republic; for that matter, the three poorly executed assassination attempts in Buffalo, Roanoke and Salem had been more successful in making Jeremy irritable than in killing any indispensable Militia members. Though it was sentimental in a way he would never say aloud, Bass breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of his city, safe and shining in the late afternoon sun. His office was less welcoming, though, with stacks of unanswered correspondence and the chill of disuse.

Dark had long since fallen over the city by the time he knocked on Rachel's door, a small brown package in his hand. There was a quiet shuffling inside and then she pulled the door open, hair drawn back from her face and a sweater tugged around her shoulders. "I was wondering when you were going to drop by."

"Hello Rachel." A smile spread across his face and, though he was too tired to really tell, he felt like it reached his eyes. "Brought you something. Invite me in?"

"You don't need an invitation. It's your house. Oh wait."

Bass pressed the package into her hands as he stepped past her, flames flickering in the fireplace. Walking across the room, he lifted the poker to stoke the fire, arm resting against the mantel. "Open it."

She hesitated, shutting the door before tugging the twine loose on the little package. Peeling the paper back, she darted a look at him, eyebrows lifted. "_A Wrinkle in Time?_"

"It's your favorite, isn't it? Your copy was looking a little tattered."

"How-" Rachel smoothed her fingers over the crisp, bright cover, the book appearing nearly unread. "How did you know that?"

"I didn't take over the East Coast without some powers of observation." Bass straightened, resting the tip of the poker against the hearth.

"Half. You took over half the East Coast," she corrected in a kneejerk response, sinking onto the sofa.

Sighing, he hung the poker back up, iron tools jangling. "Just say thank you."

"Why did you do this? Why bother being nice to me?" Somehow he thought she was probably talking about more than just the book and, feeling the weight of Miles that always seemed to linger in this room, around her, he moved to lean over her, hand on the back of the couch.

His free hand brushed her jaw and to an onlooker it might have looked romantic, or at least intimate. Rather, it was nearly suffocating to be so close to her. "You're important to me, Rachel. I wish you understood that."

She swallowed hard, pulse skittering beneath his fingers, and lifted her hand to her mouth, teeth scraping against a dry cuticle. "Then don't keep me like this, penned up all the time with the same goddamn view out my window. I'm going crazy, Bass."

"I apologize that I'm not the company Miles was." His teeth ground together, eyes darting to her bed in case she hadn't caught the too-obvious implication. Straightening, he pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. "What was Ben working on?"

"Ben was an algebra teacher."

Bass laughed, the humorless sound ringing against paper thin walls as he ran a hand over his face. "You think you hold all the cards. You're wrong, Rachel. You're so wrong." He brushed past her, hand skimming her shoulder. "Enjoy the book."

The door slammed behind him, rattling on its antique hinges.

Almost a week passed without him paying her a visit, the pressures and imagined responsibilities of the Republic encroaching on his time. The next time he stepped through her door, he had a man with him, a Sergeant Strausser. He asked all the usual questions and then unrolled a leather satchel with sharp, silver instruments that made Rachel's eyes go wide. Bass watched as two of the guards restrained her, tied her wrists behind the chair, a cold sort of fury on her face. Miles had always been a fan of psychological torture but-

not this, not with Rachel.

She called him a _son of a bitch, you coward, you-_ as he walked out of the room and shut the door, leaving Strausser to his talents.

From the hall, he heard the smash of glass, the crystal decanter falling from the table as she fought back for the first few minutes before everything grew quiet again.

He'd have to get that decanter replaced.


End file.
